Lake Harriet Walking Trails
If you’ve ever been briskly passed on a lake trail by someone wearing HOKAs, a cross-body belt bag, and an expression of calm determination — possibly mid-conversation with a partner or friend — you already understand this story.
According to Strava’s 2025 Year in Sport report, the Minneapolis–St. Paul metro ranks as the third-fastest walking region in the United States, with an average walking pace of 19 minutes and 34 seconds per mile. Not running. Walking.
Strava, for context, is a global fitness technology platform used by roughly 180 million people worldwide to track activities like walking, running, cycling, and hiking. Because it aggregates anonymized movement data at massive scale, it’s able to identify behavioral patterns — not just how fast individuals move, but how entire cities do.
And apparently, Minnesotans move with purpose.
What makes this funny is that none of it feels surprising. Fast walking here isn’t about urgency or productivity flexing. It’s practical. When you live in a place where the weather demands respect — sometimes delightful, sometimes bracing — you learn to keep moving. You enjoy the perfect days. You endure the character-building ones. And you don’t linger unnecessarily.
There’s also something structural at play. Minneapolis–St. Paul is genuinely built for walking. Lakes, parkways, greenways, connected sidewalks, neighborhoods that actually lead somewhere — walking here isn’t just exercise, it’s transportation, decompression, and social time rolled into one. It’s how people grab coffee, walk the dog, talk something out, or meet a friend without making it a formal event.
Strava’s report highlights another shift that helps explain the trend: walking is exploding in popularity, especially among Gen Z and millennials. But not in a high-performance, train-for-something way. Instead, it’s showing up as everyday movement — accessible, repeatable, and woven into real life.
Even more interesting is what Strava can see beyond pace. Participation in clubs and group activities continues to rise. Walking groups. Casual run clubs. Low-pressure meetups centered around moving together. Based on this data, Strava describes walking as becoming a new form of “social glue” — a way people are building connection and community through movement.
Which feels, frankly, very Minnesota.
This is a place that values consistency over spectacle and shared experience over showmanship. We may not strike up a conversation immediately, but we’ll walk alongside you. We’ll show up. We’ll keep a steady pace. And apparently, we’ll do it faster than most of the country.
So if someone power-walks past you on a trail like they’ve got somewhere important to be, they probably do. Not because they’re late — but because that’s just how Minnesotans walk.
If you’re looking for a low-stakes weekend activity, consider this: organize a fast-walking competition. One hundred meters. No jogging allowed. Winner gets bragging rights and a coffee.
After all, we’ve got a reputation to uphold.
Source: Strava 2025 Year in Sport Report, via Star Tribune